Valuable climate between Indonesia and the University of Sydney
27 April 2010
A selection of University of Sydney dignitaries have travelled to Indonesia to attend a series of relationship strengthening engagements with Indonesian government and academic officials. The high-profile delegation of twenty-three, which includes the University Chancellor, Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International) Professor John Hearn, along with a number of deans and academics from various faculties, will meet with Indonesian counterparts to enhance the already highly-productive educational relationship between the two countries.
A series of workshops will be held by experts from the University on special areas of interest, including Emerging Infections and their Control, and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).
Chief Investigators from the Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law (ACCEL) at the Sydney Law School will hold the REDD workshop in Jakarta to consult on legal capacity building for REDD in Indonesia with key government and NGO stakeholders. Members of ACCEL have visited Indonesia on two prior occasions in December 2007 and February 2009 to consult on their research. During these visits, stakeholders have expressed the need for legal capacity building on the issue of REDD.
ACCEL made a strategic decision to focus its collaborative research efforts on REDD in Indonesia in 2007, motivated by a growing international consensus that REDD is a priority in negotiations on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. This was confirmed by the Copenhagen Accord which recommends that funding for REDD be mobilised immediately. The research focuses on Indonesia because it is the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, 85 per cent of which is attributed to deforestation. Members of ACCEL were awarded a $224,000 ARC Discovery Grant to support their research in this area.
The workshop in Jakarta will be opened by the Chancellor, and will be attended by eight different government agencies and ten international and domestic NGOs, all of whom are closely involved in developing Indonesia's strategy for REDD. The ACCEL team will be presenting its legal capacity to assist in areas such as: regulatory frameworks for transitioning from a voluntary to compliance offset market; forestry governance; and protecting the land and resource tenure rights of local communities and Indigenous peoples through appropriate benefit-sharing arrangements. It is hoped that by consulting with all key stakeholders in a workshop environment that ACCEL's research proposal will be refined and supported.
The research team is led by Professor Rosemary Lyster, Professor of Climate and Environmental Law, Sydney Law School. Other members of the team include Dr Simon Butt, Professor Elisabeth Peden and Dr Tim Stephens. ACCEL's workshop partners are the Jakarta-based Kemitraan (Partnership for Governance Reform) and the International Development Law Office.
ACCEL is also participating in an interdisciplinary REDD research program focusing on tenure rights with researchers in the School of Geosciences, led by Dr Jeff Neilson. This research is funded by the University's Institute for Sustainable Solutions.
The delegation will be in Indonesia from Wednesday 28 April to Friday 30 April. For more information on the visit, contact Richard North richard.north@sydney.edu.au (9351 3191) or Kristi Maroc kristi.maroc@sydney.edu.au (9351 7009).
Contact: Kristi Maroc
Phone: 02 9351 7009